


and then there were two (idiots)

by sessrumnir



Category: Buzzfeed Unsolved (Web Series)
Genre: Friends to Lovers, M/M, bickering. lots of it, idk how to tag this, they're really casual about it though
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-07
Updated: 2017-12-07
Packaged: 2019-02-11 14:31:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,545
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12937275
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sessrumnir/pseuds/sessrumnir
Summary: Shane kisses Ryan by accident one day. A week later they are still trying to process what happened.





	and then there were two (idiots)

**Author's Note:**

> AU where everything is the same but they're single because I'd rather eat my feet than write them cheating and/or leaving their gals. that's just too depressing and awful. so instead have some lame ass oneshot in which lame ass bros realize they're kinda into each other!

“Where are my headphones?”

Shane turned to his left, then to his right, trying to catch a glimpse of it. Sitting at his desk, Ryan didn’t look up.

“Try looking—“

“Found it,” Shane retrieved it from the couch where it lay behind Ryan’s jacket. “I’m pretty sure I’m gonna remember something the second I step into my apartment.”

He checked agan everything he had on his hands. Phone, check. Bag, check. Jacket, check. Scarf, check. Headphones, check. Car keys, check. Desperate to just leave the room where they had been working nonstop for the past four (maybe five?) hours, Shane didn't linger. In his haste, he stepped towards Ryan - still sitting at the computer, reviewing their latest Q&A video - and gently grabbed him by the back of the neck. Almost automatically, Ryan looked up; it was just in time to see Shane lean in and give him a peck on the lips. Ryan responded to it, pressing his lips against Shane’s for a split second before the man was walking out, saying something about airfares and whatnot.

It took them a couple of seconds, but when it finally dawned on them, it was at the exact same time.

“Wait—“

“Did I just—“

They stared at eacher. Ryan had finally peeled his eyes off the screen and was looking at Shane with the most confused expression he had ever made. Shane seemed to be short-circuiting.

“Wow. I really am tired.”

“That’s not. How. Did I kiss you back?”

Shane thought for a moment. “Yeah. Yeah, you did, actually.”

“What’s just happened?”

“No idea,” Shane raised his eyebrows for effect. “But it was very weird.”

“Yeah.”

“Ok, so I’m gonna go before I propose to you or something,” Shane said, eventually leaving the room with: “Rest up, we’re gonna be up early tomorrow morning.”

Ryan called out, “Don’t remind me!” and turned back to the video he had been proofing. It was supposed to be an easy task, but he was just too tired and shellshocked to concentrate. In an attempt to focus, he straightened his back and rested both hands on the desk.

Except in doing so, he realized he had been touching his lips. And licking it. _Tasting_ it.

It could be just thirst, sure. He grabbed his water and drank it all in one breath. But the first thing to pop into his mind was the goddamn kiss. Because _of fucking course_.

Ryan looked down at the keyboard. He _had_ been licking his lips. But he _hadn’t_ been thinking about Shane. Had he? He couldn’t have. That would just be ridiculous. A peck on the lips is the most innocent of kisses. It’s barely even a kiss, he reasoned with himself. No, he wasn’t worried about it. Of course not.

And that’s what he told himself for the rest of the evening. By the time he gave up finishing the video altogether, Ryan was beyond frustrated. He had gone from amused to worried to crazyass paranoid in less than an hour. It was a good thing they didn’t need that video for another couple of days, because _fuck_.

After an hour of mental gymnastics trying to understand why he was so upset, he realized it wasn’t so much the kiss itself. To be honest it had been too quick and too subtle to do any harm. But the idea that he so readily went with it, and that Shane himself just. Kind of kissed him goodbye. Without thinking. That was bad. Not _bad_ bad, but bad. This Is So Gonna End Poorly bad.

He tried to answer his e-mails the best he could, and after a quick shower flopped onto bed; a couple of Netflix episodes later, he was out.

* * *

 “Ryan, please talk to me?” Shane asked for the third time that day, work completely forgotten. “If I crossed a line I need to know, man.”

Ryan seemed to ignore him, focused on his computer screen. The office was relatively calm, given it was lunch break for most. No one was around to hear their conversation, but Shane still tried to keep his voice down. He could see Ryan was tense; he wasn’t smiling, and his shoulders were stiff. He seemed to be avoiding eye contact, too, which was just plain weird.

“In my defense, you never said anything the other billion times I—“

“Look, I just want space, personal space. It’s fine, we're fine, just… Don’t do it again.”

He risked a glance at Shane but quickly looked back to the computer. Shane just sat there, taken aback. He wanted to argue, but he couldn’t, seeing how uncomfortable Ryan seemed to be. All he had done was rest his chin on the top of Ryan’s head while they were waiting for the elevator that morning. That was all it took for Ryan to jump in place, wide-eyed, telling Shane to _back off, dude, what the fuck_. He had been avoiding Shane ever since, all the while looking mad at something. Or at him, Shane couldn’t tell. Because he couldn’t explain Ryan’s reaction to something he had done a thousand times before and that, for some reason, had pissed him off that morning.

Shane apologized again and turned to his own computer, but before he could start working on anything, his mind suddenly clicked. Not a week ago, he had, uh, mistakingly kissed Ryan. It didn’t bother Shane himself, because well, it was Ryan. They had slept on the same bed so many times that an innocent kiss, not done on purpose, was nothing major. To him, at least. Come to think of it, Ryan had seemed on edge since that day, joking less, going away for hours on end when they were supposed to be arranging next season of Unsolved’s schedule or wrapping up edits.

But if that was the reason, Shane was at a loss. He never pegged Ryan as someone who would No Homo him, quite on the contrary. And it’s not like Shane had come on to him, either. It was an accident! An honest mistake by a Shane with little to no sleep.

Unless.

_No_ , he told himself. That was ridiculous. The idea that by kissing Ryan he had made Ryan question their relationship was just as dumb as the idea of ghosts rustling leaves, or existing.

“I’ll just.” Ryan turned off his computer screen and stood up suddenly, palming his pockets. “I got a thing.”

“A thing.”

“Yeah. Be right back.”

“You remember we have that other thing later, r—“

“YEAH,” Ryan shouted over his shoulder, already out, pratically running out the door while Shane watched, bewildered. 

* * *

That other thing, sadly for Fuck This Ryan, was a night of filming at a haunted location. Which for the most part went well — surrounded by crew and cameras, it wasn’t that hard to slip into their usual banter about doors mysteriously opening and suspicious whimpers. The problem was,

“I really don’t want to sleep here.”

Shane didn’t look up, rolling out his sleeping bag.

“Because of the mean knitter...“

“First of all, she killed someone with those needles—“

“Or because you’ll have to spend the night with me?”

Ryan choked on his own saliva. “What.”

“You’re terrified of talking to me. And I suspect that’s because we had that ki—“

“Shutupshane.”

“I’m just saying…”

“SHUTUP.” Ryan reached the audio recorder, turning it off and looking back to see Shane’s smirk. “We’re not talking about that.”

“You do realize the cameras record audio too, right.”

”Oh, shit—“ Ryan turned off the camera he was holding and walked over to turn off their main camera. All the while, Shane had been laughing at him, still busy with his bedroll and his efforts to make it as comfortable as humanly possible.

Inhaling sharply, Ryan tried once again. “Listen. We’re not talking about that.”

“I think we are.”

“No, Shane— There’s nothing to talk about.”

“I think there is, man, otherwise you wouldn’t have been avoiding me all week. That’s not subtle, you know, people notice that kind of thing.”

Ryan’s eyes widened as Shane slip into his bag, fixing the makeshift pillow under his head.

“Who? Who noticed anything?”

“Everyone. Quinta thought we were fighting about something.”

“Fuck, no.”

“Yeah.” Shane turned to look at him. “Are you really that upset?”

Instead of replying immediately as he had been doing for the past hours he had been on edge, Ryan hesitated. He sat on his sleeping bag, still not quite ready, and said: “A bit.”

“I’m sorry.”

“No, I’m not upset with you.” He paused. “It’s just. It was weird, right?”

“Well, yeah. I don’t remember kissing you goodbye before that.”

“No but I mean, I kinda… kissed you back? Isn’t that weird?”

This time, Shane thought for a second. “Now that you put it that way, kind of, yeah.”

“I wasn’t worried about you kissing me, I was more panicked that I not only kissed you back but didn’t…. Feel weird about it? I’m pretty sure I’d be more weirded out if I don’t know, Brent or Eugene had kissed me, but with you I. Kinda. Didn’t?”

Shane sat up, facing Ryan. “So what are you saying?”

“Please, don’t make me say it.”

“I honestly don’t— Oh.”

Realization dawned on him and Ryan considered if it was too late to jump out of the window and avoid that conversation entirely.

“You think you have feelings for me? Is that what this is about?”

“I don’t know! Maybe! That’s weird, though, I mean, we’re close sure b-but that’s not—“

“Can I kiss you?”

Ryan stared at him, mouth open. “What.”

“Kiss you. Can I kiss you?”

“I. I don’t know? I don’t know why that would... Anything.”

“Yes or no, Ryan.”

“Yes,” he blurted out. “Yes you may. You can. I mean.“

Before he could overanalyze it any further, Shane got to his knees and shifted closer, holding Ryan’s face gently between his hands. They stared into each other’s eyes, and for a moment Ryan worried that he might have a heartattack right there and then because of the way his heart was beating against his ribcage. He had time to watch Shane’s features, his awful moustache, the eyes that seemed to make it all a little less terrifying, before Shane leaned in and caught his lips on a kiss.

Ryan held his waist. They kissed hesitatingly at first, as if they were gauging each other’s reaction, but when none tried to move away, the kiss deepened. For the first time since that innocent kiss, Ryan understood why he had felt so weird the entire week. He had wanted more. This was what he had been wishing for and didn’t know, or refused to aknowledge. Shane was gentle but thorough, never too imposing but still making Ryan wish he didn’t need to breathe.

He pulled back eventually, sounding breathless, “Wow, that was…”

“Good. Right?”

“Yeah. Really good. Can we maybe do a bit more?”

Shane chuckled and kissed him again, and this time Ryan went further, slipping his tongue in and caressing Shane’s waist with his fingers. Time was something irrelevant at that point. They lost track of how long they were kissing, and then giggling like teenagers when their noses bumped, and then making incoherent sounds when one tugged lightly on the other's bottom lip.

“Alright,” Ryan cleared his throat as they parted, Shane shifting back to his bed without a word, the entire lower half of his face red. “Alright, that’s something.”

“To put it mildly,” Shane said with a smirk.

“Yeah. Jesus. I never thought you’d be a good kisser.”

“How long have you been wanting to kiss me, exactly?”

“No, I mean. I wasn’t…” Ryan stumbled on his words until he saw Shane smiling at him and broke into nervous laughter. “You’re the worst, you know that, right.”

Shane shrugged, his loving smile even bigger. “I do my best. Come on, let's turn on the cameras to catch some ghosts. You hear that, ghosts? Time to shine!"

* * *

"Do we have time for breakfast?" Shane asked as they got into Ryan's car. Ryan had dark circles, a very trousled bed hair and heavy eyelids. "You look like shit."

"Wow, thanks. And to answer your question, yes, we're early. I don't have to come in for another hour."

Shane ran his fingers through Ryan's hair as they drove out, "Good. Maybe we can do something about this."

"Yeah, like what? Are you gonna blow dry my hair for me?"

"There's other things I can blow." A beat. "Wow, I went there."

"You did," Ryan said with disbelief. "Are you serious right now?"

"Maybe." Shane hesitated, glancing at Ryan's mess of a hair. "I didn't want to freak you out before, but I'm on board, if you want to try and see what happens. The kissing each other on a daily basis, I mean, not the blowing. Although--"

"Shut up, we're not there yet." Ryan stuttered before he got the next words out, eyes on the road: "You mean you want us to... What? Date each other?"

"Maybe? I don't know. Whatever works for you."

"This does, dating works for me. I just. You never said how you felt about... You know, the whole thing."

This time, Shane turned to stare at Ryan, who glanced at him but didn't risk taking his eyes off the road.

"Is this because I'm an asshole who doesn't know how to show emotion or are you just too much of an idiot?"

"Whatareyoutalkingabout."

"I like you, little man. Have for a whil--"

Shane was cut off abruptly when Ryan swerved to avoid hitting a slow moving van ahead of them. He couldn't have missed it, so Shane gathered that maybe he should've waited until they had reached Starbucks to say that – although, to be fair, it was something fairly obvious to him.

"Sorry. Sorry. Sorry!" Ryan shouted the last one out the window where they could see the elderly man in the driver's seat. "What did you say? You _like_ me? Like... Romantically?"

"Yeah. Like if I were a teenage girl I'd be writing 'Shane Bergara' all over my diary."

Ryan wheezed, "How do I know you're not doing that?"

"You don't," Shane was delighted to see Ryan burst out laughing, his smile as wide and gorgeous as always. "But I'm serious. If you want, I'm all yours. Don't ask me when it happpened because I have no clue, but making you laugh became my favorite thing, and from there on it was just a series of _oh shit_ moments. Guess the goodbye kiss made the penny finally drop."

"I didn't even know you liked guys!"

"I usually don't. You basically made me gay."

"I didn't--"

"No, you didn't. But that was a good one, huh?"

"Sure," Ryan said. "Wow. I guess we're dating now?"

Ryan found a parking space right across the Starbucks near the office. They didn't leave immediately. Instead they sat there, quietly, processing what that all meant. The one to break the silence was Shane, grinning as he eyed the Starbucks across the street.

"We're about to have our first official date in a Starbucks!"

"No, we're not, this is not a--"

"At 8a.m. On a Tuesday!"

"Shut up, Shane."


End file.
